Normally my weekly UFC round up post is in regards to the event that we just saw, but I don't really think that was necessary for this week. The event wasn't particularly interesting and a lot of people didn't even watch it, so me putting forth the effort to dissect it just isn't really there. Instead, I want to briefly touch on a few topics floating around the MMA world for the last week or so.
First, I have to give props to Serghei Spivac for collecting the biggest win of his career. It is becoming evident that Derrick Lewis isn't the guy he once was, but that's a win that still carries some weight to me. Spivac did exactly what he needed and was able to avoid the big right hand that a lot of people, including myself, thought would be his undoing. He was able to ground the fight and submit Lewis pretty quickly. Spivac has himself set up pretty nicely for a big opportunity going forward. Also, shoutout to Devin Clark on a big win. Clark is a guy that is hard to root against, at least for me. He's had some tough results and taken a lot of damage over the last few years, so to see him pick up a win like that felt good.
Of course, the better card on Saturday was the Bellator event. I saw they got something like 900K viewers, but I'm not sure if that number is accurate or not. If so, that's a bit disappointing, but it's still a good night considering what I imagine a normal Bellator audience is. There's nothing I can say about Fedor that hasn't already been said. I'm a bit on the younger side, at least in regards to when Fedor was at his best, but I have nothing but respect for what he's done and felt a bit sad for the way it ended. The rest of the main card delivered though Sabah Homasi is guaranteed fireworks and matching him up with Brennan Ward was a great idea to open the CBS portion of the event. Ward is another feel good story and seeing him succeed has to make everyone feel good. Johnny Eblen is one of the most underrated stories in MMA over the last year. He's the best fighter that no one knows. His dismantling of Gegard was eye opening and this was another great win. I think he has a very real argument towards being the best middleweight in the world right now. I'm not going to pretend that I was pounding the table for him either as I really didn't know a ton about him until much more recently. This first time I remember seeing him was on the Pettis vs Horiguchi card. Looking back at his record, I see he was on other cards that I watched, but I honestly don't remember him before that. He's been incredible and he seems to still be getting better. Congratulations to him on his first defense and congratulations to Fedor on a phenomenal career.
The main topic that I really wanted to talk about is the conversation surrounding the promotion, or lack thereof, for UFC 284 this coming weekend. It's really no secret at this point that the UFC's definition of promotion is to post some highlights on instagram during the week and show the card during the previous weeks event. I and many others have been critical of this, but the UFC doesn't care as there's really no reason for them to. There's no danger of them losing their top spot and they simply rely on the brand to sell the event more than anything else. While that works to some degree, I feel like there's missed opportunities to build larger stars out of certain fighters because no event feels like a big deal. Every event feels the same as the build up for Spivac vs Lewis is really no different than the build up for Makhachev vs Volkanovski. This is a fight that we should have been hearing about for the last month, but because of the UFC formula, we really only start seeing "promotion" for it over the last couple of days. Islam decided to speak up about this and express his displeasure with the lack of attention this fight is getting. Ultimately, he's right. The UFC should have been doing a better job to sell and build this fight into a bigger deal. This is one of the best fights that the UFC can put on right now and there's 0 mainstream interest in it. The lack of buzz is no one's fault but the UFC's. However, Islam doesn't go without some blame in a different sense. While he's right in saying it should be the UFC's job to promote the event, he can't just sit back and expect that given what we've seen over the last however many years. What has happened with this event isn't anything new. Islam had to know this is what would happen and he didn't do anything to change that. If he wanted more promotion, then he knew he would have to do some of that himself and he chose not to. He really didn't even provide the UFC with the material to promote it how they normally do. Islam doesn't do interviews or provide sound bites or really do much of anything in terms of promotion. The UFC should have done a better job, but he really didn't give them much to work with either. Just when we thought we were at the end of this story, we had a little more fuel added to the fire when Dana White seemingly forgot Islam's name during the press conference after Lewis vs Spivac. If that doesn't indicate how checked out Dana is at this point, then I don't know what does. I'm not here to pile on the guy, but clearly he's just not as into this as he once was. In general, I think this kind of thing is a non-story, but the timing of it all just isn't a good look. Just a few weeks ago we had to sit through Dana telling us how suspending him would only be a punishment to the fighters and that the UFC would crumble into ashes if he were to go away for a couple of months. Now we have the top fighters in the promotion calling him out for not promoting and him not even knowing their name whenever someone asks a question about them. This isn't even some random fighter on a random card. This is the main event in what may be the best fight of the entire MMA year. It should be a bit embarrassing for him, but we know it's not.
As far as some more positive news, we got the official announcement of Conor McGregor and Michael Chandler being the next set of coaches for The Ultimate Fighter. You guys know I haven't been a fan of TUF for awhile now, but even I can't hate this. I'm still not particularly excited as I think the show should just be left a thing of the past, but if it has to exist, this is pretty much the best that they could do. The show should do a decent job of building up some hype for Conor's return as this is probably the lowest his stock has been in quite some time. Getting fans interested in him and just getting his name out there should rebuild his aura, at least a little bit. Chandler provides a worthy challenge and I think the energy he brings will create an interesting and entertaining dynamic. This is probably as interested as I can be in TUF at this point, so that's at least something. The real news is that we are getting a Conor return and I think that is really bigger than it's being made out to be. He's coming off of a serious injury and he really doesn't need to fight. I never thought it was a sure thing he would return, so actually getting him back is huge for the UFC and a great sign for Conor's health. I'm not sure how many fights Conor has left in him, so I just want to appreciate them while they exist. There will never be another like him and there doesn't seem to even be anyone comparable on the horizon. The actual fight itself should be awesome. We know Michael Chandler is probably going to oblige Conor in a striking battle, at least for a little bit. Chandler should wrestle, which we all say every time he fights, but he's going to put on a show and we love him for it. While I just said Volk vs Islam is the best fight we'll get all year, this one is probably the most fun. It's also going to sell the most, but that's a given when Conor is on the bill. I think the UFC really hit the nail on the head with everything here. Having the two on TUF is the biggest the show can probably get at this point. I think this is the right matchup for both guys too. There's no bigger fight for either. I know there's some fans who won't want to hear it, but the winner probably gets injected into the title picture. This fight almost made too much sense and I think we're all glad it got made.
What do you guys think? What is the biggest story of the week for you? What are your thoughts on any or all of these? Thanks for reading and have a good one.
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